Author: Dan Jones @dwj22

Here’s how: Startup Weekend.

Eugene had an idea. The idea: make resumes more visual. The problem: he didn’t know how to make it happen. What did he do? He went to a Startup Weekend.

Startup Weekend is simple. It’s 54 hours which equals 1 night + 2 days of startup craziness. 

First night: It starts with the ideas. First they are pitched. Attendees vote on them, and teams are formed around the top ones.  Then skills are identified, and ideas are discussed to set the direction your team will take.

Day 1: This is where the work happens and the fun begins. All day you build, you get mentoring, and you do all the hustling you can handle. The bulk of your building happens on this day.

Day 2: If sprinting a mile were like a Startup Weekend, this would be the last lap. You put the finishing touches on your project, you meet with mentors, you get help from other teams, and you prep for questions, and you get ready to present. At night, companies are presented, judged, and thenawards are given out.

Most people take months to move from an idea to service or a product.  Startup Weekend allows you to experience all of that in 54 hours.  But that’s just the core; Startup Weekend comes with other added benefits:

·         Meet local startup leaders: These mentors that have succeeded in startups. Not only will you get the chance to get face time with them, but you also get feedback from them and can begin to build these relationships

·         Co-founder dating: The weekend is a great way to really test who you are compatible with. After the startup weekend, you know which people you can found a business with because you will have just started one. 

·         Startup Weekend is cheap: $75 for seven meals, snacks, access to exclusive resources, AND the opportunity to build a business? You’re definitely getting a lot of bang for your buck.

Startups need skills. If you can hack, hustle, or design, we think Startup Weekend is for you. To help get more hackers there, we at BoomStartup are providing scholarships covering fees for 12 UI/UX coders or for back-end developers. If you’ve got these skills, email our executive director Andy White, at awhite@boomstartup.com. 

Events like this are crucial for relationships in the community. They strengthen ecosystem growth, and create an environment where startups can sprout, grow, and develop.  That’s why we’re doing these scholarships, and that’s why we’re going to be there.

But what happened to Eugene? Well, he showed up and pitched his idea at Startup Weekend. It was a hit. He was given a team and they went to work. Before the 54 hours was up, his site was getting hits from all over the world.  Today his site visualize.me has over 100,000 users. 

54 hours isn’t a lot of time, but it’s enough to start a business.  You can talk and think about starting a business, or on February 2-4, you can be part of starting one. 

Will you be the next Eugene? Who knows, but after 54 hours of hustling and hacking, you can say that you’ve done something crazy—you’ve started a business in one weekend.